In current medical research animals to be experimented upon, such as, for example, mice, rats, and guinea pigs, are housed in cages. The cages are often of the same size for convenience in stacking one upon another for placement within a central rack and cage support arrangement. Since medical research demands fairly large numbers of experimental data to be statistically significant, the number of animals and hence cages is also necessarily relatively large. Means are, of course, provided for adequate water supply and food for each animal, and access to each animal where required. However, often ambient room lighting is the only source of illumination for the cages themselves. Technicians may resort to the use of a flashlight, which is somewhat inconvenient and not always available. This may necessitate removing or opening each cage and manually handling the research animal, a time consuming and potentially hazardous procedure. Research data can also be skewed. The present invention addresses these problems, providing clear illumination of the animal(s) housed in each cage in an efficient and economical manner.
Some Objects of the Present Invention
It is therefore a primary object of the invention to provide clear illumination for animals housed in multiple cages.
A further object of the invention is to provide lighting directed to individual cages.
Still another object of the invention is to provide lighting of different colors to individual cages.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide lighting of different intensities to individual cages.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a light source for illuminating animal cages that can be easily removed, or left in place when the rack and cage support system is cleaned and/or sterilized, without danger to the lighting system.
Yet another additional object of one embodiment of the invention is to provide lighting utilizing LED or fiber optic devices which is easily moved and positioned within the rack area and where the LED or fiber optic devices remain positioned on the frame.
A still further additional object of another embodiment of the invention would be to provide lighting by mounting individual LEDs or fiber optic devices in each animal cage which are powered through an electrical receptacle or coupled to an external fiber optic device which would engage a plug portion in the cage to energize the LED or fiber optic device when the cage slides into a frame position.
These and other objects are obtained with the animal cage lighting system and method of the present invention.
In the housing of experimental laboratory animals a great deal of effort and ingenuity has been employed for caring for these animals, and the necessary cleaning procedures for the multiple cages. Surprisingly, little thought has been given to adequately lighting the individual cages. As noted above, technicians must often resort to flashlights or physically handle the cages and animals with potential danger to themselves or risk of skewing research data.